This article originally appeared in the July 2008 issue of Architectural Digest.

The eye refuses to see the common, as the California architectural historian Esther McCoy once noted. It's the new and unique that captures the gaze, until—eventually, inevitably, perhaps sadly—the eye tires of the novelty and finally sees it no longer: The new becomes banal and invisible. But then, in the next turn of the fashion cycle, after the old has been swamped by other new things that have themselves become tired and common, the style that had been dismissed, perhaps for decades, ends up fresh again, something to notice, a rediscovery.

Take the color turquoise, so popular in the 1950s: Outlawed by the design police, it returned in a eureka moment for a younger generation. Or the tutti-frutti Marshmallow sofa of the '50s by George Nelson: Dissed as goofy by arbiters of good taste, it roared back on the crest of midcentury Modern's popularity.

The Hamptons, an architectural hothouse since World War II, has hosted many shifts of architectural style, but one especially suffered from fashion amnesia. During the 1970s and early '80s, a style without even a name erupted and thrived. After the postwar period of clean-lined, post-and-beam Modernism and its sequel, geometrically volumetric buildings influenced by Le Corbusier, there was a 10-year interregnum, just before the shingled houses of Postmodernism started rampaging through the potato fields. In this transitional period, a group of architects shaped a softer form of Modernism—abstract buildings with curving walls clad inside and out in vertical cedar siding that was left natural. Floor-to-ceiling windows closed the gaps in the walls.

It was probably not the style of the 5,500-square-foot house that prompted a New York family to buy the vintage structure so much as its site on a dreamy pond off the Atlantic. But having committed to the property, they had to like the house because were they to demolish it and propose another, they would lose its grandfathered proximity to the pond. The couple called on Shelton, Mindel Associates, with which they'd worked on their Manhattan apartment, to refresh it.

Lee F. Mindel and Peter L. Shelton saw the house for its qualities and possibilities. Mindel, as much architectural historian as architect, has a compassionate eye capable of understanding the logic and nuances of Modernism. "The houses from this era are often passed on by potential buyers because they don't know what to do with them—how to finesse them, how to bring them up to date," says Mindel.

"We tried to accept the building and embrace what it had to offer," says Shelton. "The question was how to honor the old while bringing it forward."

Often the wiser part of renovation is editing, and the architects decided to clarify the building's intentions by cleaning it up, simplifying the landscaping and performing selective surgery that would open up parts of the plan—two wings joined by a central living room. Inside and out the wood on the walls, which had become dark and dull with age, was stripped and sanded, bringing back the warmth. The architects restored and added to the lighting with the idea of trying to strike what Mindel calls the "right pH balance" of luminosity and color. They reconditioned the terra-cotta-tile floors. The master suite, guest rooms and kitchen were reconfigured to eliminate warrens.

Beside the massive stone fireplace, sliding glass doors unite the space with the pond in the distance. Large clerestory windows enhance the indoor-outdoor connection.

It's at this point that architects usually hand over a house to an interior designer, but the new, refreshed context was for Shelton and Mindel a point of departure. Having subordinated their architectural ego by restoring the house's integrity, they were ready for their own architectural turn.

Shelton and Mindel pursue a seamless design continuity from structure to doorknob, and in this wide embrace, they believe furniture can capture the larger ideas of the building in the smaller detail. The architects often define the character of a room with a few good pieces. The right towel rack can illuminate a bath.

With its curvaceous walls, the house suggested sculptural rather than wall-hugging furniture, pieces that stand in the round, floating free in space. When they placed a swank récamier in the master bedroom, the contoured chaise, more Marilyn than madame, looked like a work of voluptuous art and gave the room focus.

The furniture may be beautiful, but the architects don't simply use furniture to create a gallery. Two very long, low sofas with the attenuated proportions of cigarette holders give the tall living room a friendly, low horizon—one that opens to the view of the pond like the arms of a compass.

Sometimes furniture is destiny. In search of the house's lost stature, Shelton and Mindel used furniture to cultivate structure, line and focus. They refreshed the building, brought it back and then, to usher it forward, added architecture you can sit on. They made the house new again.

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